Tornado Simulation (Image 3)

Tornado Simulation (Image 3) Ming Xue of the University of Oklahoma used the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's (PSC) terascale computer system to run one of the largest tornado simulations ever created. Together with the PSC's Greg Foss, who used Xue's numeric simulations to create a 3-dimensional visualization, Xue successfully simulated a 1977 supercell thunderstorm and the high-intensity tornado that it spawned. The results captured the tornado's vortex structure with wind speeds of 260 miles per hour -- classified as an F5 on the Fujita tornado intensity scale. The research was supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) grants ATM 01-29892 and EEC 03-13747.

Xue is a team member with the $40 million NSF Engineering Research Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA). A complete summary of the simulation project is available at http://www.casa.umass.edu/docs/Retwistered_twister.pdf. [Image 3 in a series of 3. See Image 1.] (Date of Image: May 2004)